1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a stationary exercise apparatus and, more particularly to a folding elliptical exercise apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Elliptical exercise apparatus is a kind of stationary exercise machine. It has left and right pedals for supporting left and right feet of a user and can guide the user to exercise along an elliptical closed path, simulating jogging or running. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,637 discloses a typical elliptical exercise apparatus. The embodiment thereof has left and right supporting members for supporting the left and right pedals. The front end of each left and right supporting members is coupled to a crank for moving along a circle path. The rear end thereof is coupled to a track to perform linearly reciprocating movement. The left and right pedals, therefore, are driven to move along an elliptical closed path.
Preferably, the user may want the elliptical exercise apparatus to be folded up when he/she wants to store the elliptical exercise in order to save some space. The applicant of the present invention disclosed a folding elliptical exercise apparatus in U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,551. Front ends of left and right rails therein are independently pivoted to the frame, rear ends of the left and right rails are respectively equipped with caps. Each bottom side of left and right supporting members is arranged with a lock. Each of the rails and supporting members can be independently rotated about its front end in a vertical plane relative to the ground surface. When the user wants to fold up the elliptical exercise apparatus, the left and right supporting members can be rotated upward first. Then, the left and right rails can also be rotated upward about 90 degrees to engage the caps into the locks which are bolted on the bottom surfaces of left and right supporting members. Therefore, the rails and the supporting members are at a substantial vertical position, and the elliptical exercise apparatus at such storage status has a smaller footprint comparing to a using status.
The folding elliptical exercise apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,551, however, still has some aspects which can be improved better. Firstly, to facilitate the folding process, the user has to make a crank stop at a particular angle so that the caps of the left and right rails and locks of left and right supporting members can be successfully joined together. Otherwise, if the supporting member are rotated upward regardless the crank position, the rear end of the corresponding rail usually can not engage to the bottom surface of the supporting member correctly. In this situation, the user has to either lower the rail and supporting member to restart again or grasp the supporting member to force the crank to rotate. Secondly, the left and right sides of the elliptical exercise apparatus have to be folded separately. In other words, the user must operate the same steps twice to complete the folding process. During the folding process, the rear ends of the supporting members can not be continuously supported by the rails because of insufficient length of the rails.
DE 202007011406 discloses a folding elliptical exercise apparatus. In order to make the rear ends of supporting members be always supported or coupled to the corresponding tracks at both use and storage positions, the elliptical exercise apparatus thereof has telescopic tracks. The rear ends of the supporting member are higher than the rear ends of the tracks after folding. If a user wants to fold the elliptical exercise apparatus to the storage position, he must elongate the left and right tracks. Steps of folding process are inconvenient. The telescopic tracks are also complicated to manufacture and expensive.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,462,135 adopts familiar mechanical components which are often used in treadmill in elliptical exercise apparatus. During folding process, not only supporting members, pedals, and tracks but also crank mechanisms, pulleys, flywheel, and resistance assembly are moved together. Therefore, the user nearly has to take the whole weight of the elliptical exercise apparatus.